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Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
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SUNDAY 24th JULY 2011!
... Citydash – a game of fast and stealthy urban strategy, where you can have fun finding unexplored bits of London - took place on Sunday 24th July at 3pm around Liverpool St station in London. All proceeds went to the mental health charity, MIND. For details of future Citydash events, click here. ...
War is declared
Extract from LIFE AT HILL END 1940 –THERE IS A WAR ON By Hilary Anderson (nee Gathercole) and Jean James (nee Mossman) Published in The Hillender 7 Oct 1982 St Albans Museums ‘War had just been declared and it seemed like the end of everything that we, young ladies just starting our second year of nursing at Bart’s Hospital in London, had hoped and planned for.’ The nurses describe the Hospital’s transformation into an Emergency Medical Service...
Wounded of Dunkirk
‘As the war hotted up, more patients began to fill the Hospital beds. Very early one morning in Spring 1940, the Assistant Matron came to the nurses’ quarters and woke us up saying there had been an evacuation from the Continent and many wounded were expected to arrive that day. We knew this was to be something special and of course it was – Dunkirk. Doctors, nurses, porters, operating theatre staff – everyone was on duty. No one knew what number...
Cockroaches and rancid butter
Hilary Anderson (née Gathercole) and Jean James (née Mossman) describe the food available at Hill End during the war, when they worked there as St Barts’ trainee nurses. ‘The food at Hill End was something else. Because of rationing each nurse was issued with her allocation of butter and sugar which she carried to meals along with her gas mask. The butter was nearly always rancid but somehow we managed to eat it. After all, when you are breakfast...
LAND MINE AT CELL BARNES
‘One night a terrific rushing noise like a steam traction engine coming nearer and nearer suddenly broke the peace of our little world. The entire Hospital rocked from what appeared to be an explosion, blowing out all the windows with its force. In the dim light among the shattered glass, we looked for our patients but stood amazed, for in a flash all 40 beds of the ward had emptied and we were alone. Eventually we discovered our patients in the ...
Hill End Halt through the years
... The pictures on this page have been taken from the Lost Rails project. Hill End Halt was part of the Alban Way which ran between St Albans and Hatfield. You can see more pictures of this railway line and hear memories about it by following this link. ...
A 'Blue Belt' at St Albans
... ‘Ourselves’ at St Albans. Extract from ‘League News’ document held at St Albans Museums ...
Childhood memories of Dunkirk Days
Extract from The Hillender October 1982 St Albans Museums Childhood Memories of Dunkirk Days By Phyllis Halpern District Transport Secretary The television coverage during June 1980 of the Dunkirk evacuation brought back sharp recollections of Hill End’s role during this traumatic but exciting time. It was a strange mixture of defeat and triumph which moved the whole population. At that time I was a child living on the Hill End estate. My father...
The Boke of St Albans (1481)
... The Boke of St Albans, first published in 1481, proved a valuable source on Radio 4’s Questions, Questions on 21st July 2011, regarding a listener’s enquiry about the collective name for a certain group of animals. Written in part by Dame Juliana Berners, who was thought to have been a Prioress of Sopwell, this book – the first to be printed in English, featuring breeds of dogs – is mentioned in more detail under Hospitals/Cell Barnes. ...
Coals to the Hospital
‘Many people will remember Hill End Railway Station which was situated quite near to the hospital, consisting of a single track line operating between St Albans and Hatfield, by which lots of goods were brought to the Hospital until the Station closed some time after the war. In the early days, coal was used for the boilerhouse and for the many fireplaces in the residential quarters and was brought by trucks to Hill End station, which were then...
NEW RUN for sell-out theatre production
Theatre group Vital Xposure presented Julie McNamara’s The Knitting Circle at the Cochrane Theatre, London on Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd September 2011. The playwright – herself a survivor of the Mental Health services – lived and worked at Harperbury Hospital, in Hertfordshire, for two years in the 1980s. She has recently been back to visit. The play, directed by Paulette Randall, is based on authentic testimony and follows the story of Ja...
Herts and Minds
... Aspects of Hertfordshire health care over the centuries will be examined in an exhibition at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies on Tuesday 11 October 5.30 – 8pm. Original documents relating to Hill End and other hsopitals will be on display. There will be a talk by Chris Tutton entitled ‘Poetry as Healing’ and representatives from MIND will be attending to explain their work. ...
Postcards of Hill End
... Wish you were here? It seems very strange to me that anyone would print and sell postcards of an asylum however these images of Hill End were sent to me and they are an interesting reminder of how the landmarks that remain (eg the Chapel) fitted into the site. ...
A Life Without Substance
... This film was shown at one of the Out of Sight, Out of Mind? events. It explores the feeelings that afflict people with mental health problems. Click on the arrow in the centre of the picture to go to the You Tube website and view this film. ...
Short Films screening
... Tony Gammidge (artist and film-maker) in partnership with Emergence ( a service user-led organisation supporting all people affected by personality disorder) presented a screening of extraordinary, strange and compelling films from secure psychiatric wards at The Horse Hospital, London WC1 on Thursday 10th November. They were shown alongside work by contemporary artists, including those affected by personality disorder. ...
Creative Media
Early in November a meeting was held at the Royal Society of Medicine, in London, entitled ‘The art of psychiatry: How patients use creative media in their recovery and how the media treat the issue of mental disorder’. Art therapists from varied disciplines and from a number of different environments were represented, including both psychiatric and forensic psychiatric (i.e. criminal offenders) units. The Bethlem Gallery, which was set up in 199...
Bethlem Hospital Art
Bridge Over Troubled Water is Bethlem Hospital resident Barrington’s first solo exhibition. It showcases his large-scale vibrant watercolours, depicting imaginary scenes drawn from his experiences growing up in Jamaica and England. The artist’s unusual style combines a naïve visual language with meticulously repeated vistas and scenery. Barrington’s prolific output has been recognised and bought by Outsider Arts’ collections and individuals; he ...
My Grandfather at Hill End
My grandfather, Sydney Sheppard, was a long-time employee at the Hospital, starting as an office boy and working there for 50 years, rising to controller. He lived at the corner of Hill End and Cell Barnes Lane in a large white house with my grandmother, and in 1947 moved to Hill End Farm at Tyttenhanger Green, where I spent my childhood weekends and holidays. I remember fondly the Christmas parties at the hospital when very young – during and af...
Social Life at Hill End in War time
No Curfew at Hill End ‘War had just been declared and it seemed like the end of everything that we, young ladies just starting our second year of training at Bart’s Hospital in London, had hoped and planned for. A few days previously the nurses had been warned of a possible evacuation to the country and, on the day before the war started, quite a few of us were taken by buses to our new destination at Hill End Hospital in St Albans………. Once the...
Work as therapy
Extract from L A Frost’s memories of working at Hill End Hospital in the 1930s and 40s (document from St Albans Museums 1995) Occupational therapy ‘Many patients were given various jobs according to their ability and to help with their treatment. Some helped with the ornamental and kitchen gardens, some worked at the farms…..some helped with various domestic cleaning work and one or two helped with calculations in the Hospital Stores. One of them...
Radio 4 investigates hallucinations
... Hallucinations – a mental disturbance? a religious experience? or the byproduct of a physical disease? This programme looks into current thinking on where hallucinations might come from, and discovers with the aid of neuroscientific experiments, the particular parts of the brain which give rise to such experiences. [First broadcast on 17th October 2012] ...
Plastic Surgery at Hill End
... During World War II Hill End Hospital housed one of the plastic surgery units for London. This is covered on two web sites the Lost Hospitals of London, this is a full description of the hospital with a section on plastic surgery. Plastic Kiwis – New Zealanders and the development of a speciality, this covers pioneering work by many surgeons including that done by Rainsford Mowlem at Hill End. ...
Book listings
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Birds’ Nest Soup by Hanna Greally. Born in Athlone in 1925, Hanna Greally spent the best part of the 1940s and 1950s incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in the Irish Midlands, following her mother’s unexpected death. In Birds’ Nest Soup she recounts with vivid detail the terrible suffering she endured there. Though mentally well – and accepted as such by the authorities – she was condemned to life in an atmosphere...
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